Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Planted White Sage

Today I pinched back my tomatoes and planted a white sage I bought at the Sunset and Vine Farmers Market from the Theodore Payne nursery. I've been sitting on it for awhile, but finally put it in the ground. I rescued my old soil sifter and used it to remove the more inhospitable aspects of my Los Angeles soil - the big chunks of dead clay that looks very much like asphalt.

"Hey,whatcha doing?"

As I sit on the couch typing this, the squirrels and jays take shifts in the tree just outside the window. They stare at me, urging me to throw another handful of peanuts on the patio. The garden is practically mulched with peanuts and peanut shells and I've had to work out intricate methods to prevent both the birds and squirrels from displacing seedlings to cache peanuts. I can't help it, though, I love them. I have my favorites - Mama squirrel, who takes peanuts from my hand, and a big disheveled blue scrub jay who always looks like he just got out of bed. He follows me through the garden as I work. He sits atop the tomato cages and coos whisper songs. I've read they only follow you for food but I don't believe this is true. They are very bright birds and the way they play, with other jays and with me, suggests sociability.

Yesterday I moved ferns that I pollinated from spores to seed trays. There are staghorn ferns and asplenium nidus - bird's nest ferns. We'll see how this second phase works.

I pulled some nigella pods today, and collected the seeds.

The cool thing about farming in Los Angeles is that there is an almost infinite number of ways to do it.

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Los Angeles Urban Farming

Funny that you can live in downtown Los Angeles on a half acre of land, and farm. The whole grow-your-own, 100-mile, food security, makerliness of urban farming is captivating. There's a community of hard-working farmers in the Silverlake area doing very exciting things: chickens, bees, aquaculture, school farms, public spaces, food sharing, classes, and more. I'm looking forward to becoming more involved.